Claustrophobia
by Marilena
Summary: The day has been a mixed bag for Marley. On one hand, there have been dealt a significant blow; on the other, they have captured two Ackermans. Mikasa and Levi will have to fight for their life and sanity - and that is only the beginning. Canon!compliant up to ch104. Slow burn.
1. two birds, one stone

**Claustrophobia**

* * *

i. One stone

The air smelled of fresh wounds and disinfectant and, strangely, citrus. The bright oppression of artificial lighting close to her face forced her eyes closed. People came and went, their elongated forms casting shadows over her eyelids like cardboard puppet theatre.

"Get the doctor, I want a word," a man spoke. As the haze of sleep lifted off her, Mikasa wondered if she heard a foreign accent on him and why she had the worst headache of her life. The fact that she had to ask both these things in the same setting did not bode well, she thought with a note of alarm. She noticed her left thigh radiating heat. Something was tethered to it. She tried to touch it but was held back by cuffs on her wrists and a sharp lashing of pain made her stomach churn. Turning on her side, she convulsed and let the acidly bitter tasting contents of her stomach out until she could muster nothing but dry heaves. A hand came to rest on her back; another one lifted the strands of hair off her forehead.

The white light had been knocked over when she lifted her head. Mikasa opened her eyes at the sight of her own vomit. Scanning the room with barely contained wariness, ready to pounce at the first opening, the details of her situation lit up like red ink on parchment. She was in enemy territory, Liberio presumably. Captured by Marley, she lay on a hospital bed; her leg was slashed open seven inches long and finely stitched. A brace was holding it in place because her luck would have it be broken too. A military man sitting upright in a chair by the window threw his unfinished tangerine in the bin. Her heart raced fast, her mind faster. She breathed deeply, painfully, and considered both escape routes, by window and door, with or without taking someone hostage, killing everyone, lying through her teeth or playing innocent.

The military man had twin pistols on his hips, wore a mean face, and this was clearly not his first rodeo. Mikasa would have risked her chances against him, even in her injured state, had she not been physically restrained at the knees and ankles. She also knew nothing of the layout and location of the building, the terrain and the fate of her comrades. She calculated her chances of achieving something positive through early action to roughly nil. _Breathe in once, breathe out long._ Perhaps, if the gods were favourable, the others would have escaped and none of this would matter.

"That's all right, child," said a matronly woman in many layers of white robes. She was the one that had stood over her and puller her hair out of the way. Mikasa noticed her starched cap and calloused hands. _She must be a nurse._ _My helpful enemy nurse._ There was a roadmap of lines on her face. "You are lucky to still have that leg but it will get you in a world of pain, don't you doubt it," she said, stooping low to clean the vomit off the tiled floor with a tired sigh. "How is your head feeling?"

"Now that she is awake, I really need you to get Dr. Mann," the military man barked. Everything on him was square, his jaw and nose, his shoulders and air. "I can't very well go get him myself and leave her alone." At that, Mikasa though she heard a note of real apprehension. All soldiers were dangerous, as they had proved with their blood-drenched operation on the enemy capital, but she was more so. Did her ill fated name precede her?

"I am keeping watch," the nurse said calmly and continued to go about her business of wiping up the mess. "The young lady is hurt and cuffed and seems like a smart girl. So, don't go causing trouble now, hear?" she said to no one in particular.

"Don't be stupid. This is no young lady, it's a stinking pest," he said. He was suddenly bridling with passion, overflowing like a box someone poured all their bad mornings into. "Do you know how many innocent lives you twisted devils took yesterday? It runs in the hundreds. Thousands. "

 _And yours runs in the hundreds of thousands_ , Mikasa wanted to retort but said nothing and refused to look at him for good measure. The situation was too unfamiliar and her gut feeling and training told her to be as interesting as a drying piece of jerky. She desperately tried to gather her thoughts but there were gaping holes in her recollection of what had happened after they sounded the retreat. More importantly, her heart ached with the need to know whether the zeppelin made it out of Marley safely. She knew she should never ask. She would not show any weakness before she knew what was up, and not even then. Only when they let their guard down, when the chink in their armour would glow bright as day, she would strike and it would be clean and deadly.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the man rose, crossed the room in two long strides and struck the kneeling old nurse with a kick strong enough to send her sprawling on her back. She yelped, a shrill noise that grated on the nerves. Mikasa gripped the sheets tightly, discreetly, and through sheer force of will did not move an inch.

"I told you to get the doctor, pig! I don't know why you'd want to care for the devil that has ruined the lives of your filthy race and caused the deaths of so many noble Marleyans. I shouldn't have to ask twice. I am thinking your family should get a one-way trip to that cursed island," the officer said, spitting at his feet.

The doctor, a slight and troubled fellow, stood at the door, his mouth slightly twisted. "Koslow, it is noontime and I am here, like I said I would. Other patients need tending to. Nina meant no disrespect. She is very serious about her job and has helped us save countless brave men," he said, coming over to help her up. Nina was doubled over her abdomen, but her eyes had undergone the most significant change, gone dull like a dead rat's.

"I am very sorry, officer Koslow. I only wanted to clean up this disgusting smell for you. We are grateful for all your hard work and can only hope you will be able to squash these vermin that make our children's lives so hard. Glory to Marley! Glory to the Motherland!" she rasped quickly, leaning on the doctor first, then the doorframe. "Please don't hurt my grandchildren. They are all I have left. They will give their lives for Marley one day."

"I sure hope so," said Koslow and, in that moment, bathed in the light of his own hateful determination, he seemed forged out of ultrahard steel. Mikasa did not know what the future held, but she had an idea or two. She braced herself for impact, all kinds of unforeseeable impact, all of which she would bear easily if it could keep Eren, Armin and the others safe.

* * *

The good doctor Mann had not put up a convincing argument for her continued recuperation at the hospital. She supposed that he wanted officer Koslow and his entourage out of his hair as soon as possible and she could hardly blame him for it. They had tied, blindfolded and manhandled her onto a wheeled chair and then they were off on what Eren's reports had called a "car". It was faster than a carriage and noisier by far, but it was no longer in her nature to be perturbed by odd experiences, if it had been ever. She did not keep count of the turns. Even if she could make her way back to the hospital, it would not help her.

"It is best if you don't push her too much until her leg and head injuries are mostly healed. Someone hit her hard with a piece of debris when she was captured and she came in with a severe concussion. It was touch and go for a bit," the doctor had said before they left. "She may not remember everything at once. Likely to faint if you pull and shake too much. Godspeed."

She really did not remember everything, at least after the commencement of their operation on Liberio. She did, however, remember every little bit and piece of information about Paradis, Eren and the Survey Corps that the military government of Marley would be interested in. The doctor's disclosure could buy her some time and maybe a modicum of lenience until she figured out what to do, if she played her cards right.

When they arrived at their destination, Mikasa heard the familiar bustle of a town that was trying to return to normal after an unforeseen tragedy. A booming man's voice was calling out in the distance. "Newspaper, new issue! Newspaaaaper, our glorious Marley emerges victorious after sneak attack on civilians! New issue, two enemies captured by our brave military and warriors! Newspaaaaaper!"

Mikasa growled quietly in her throat. They had caught another one. Who was it? Was he or she all right? Would they play them off each other, hurting them in turns until they got what they wanted out of the weakest willed one? She would resist! She carefully mulled these dark thoughts over as the Marleyan officers lifted the wheeled chair and carried her down several flights of stairs. An increasing sense of foreboding mixed with the cold dampness in the air made her clothes stick to her skin, and she caught herself labouring over the mental image of hurt Eren or terrified Armin being tortured before her eyes, pressing questions boring into them, knots unravelling everywhere as she broke her silence and told them –

The blindfold was ripped off her, tossed aside along with her restraints, and she was picked up from the chair and thrown into a cell. She landed on her injured leg and bit her cheeks mournfully to keep from shouting out. This Koslow was clearly not one to defer to anyone else's advice, even the advice of a doctor. She looked at the men. There were three of them – middle-aged, probably mid-ranking except Koslow, entirely hostile.

She turned her gaze to the cell, noticed how hard it was to breathe down there as though a cool, thin goo settled over her lungs when she took breath. The walls to her back and left side were of stone, big and smooth chunks overflowing with dungeon moss. On her front and right side were tall, rusty iron bars, sparse enough for a hand to go through, too tight for a leg or head. The artificial Marleyan lights in the corridors glowed dim orange. There was no sunlight – there wouldn't be any, she guessed.

In the musty oppressiveness of this place, Mikasa had a very human thought. _I don't want to stay here_. Would that someone could come and help – but no. Not. She could handle this on her own, she should. For her sake and that of her captured comrade's. She was stronger, firmer than the others, better equipped…

A taut invisible string was trying to pull her throat, heart and the pit of her stomach in alignment.

"Think long and hard what it is you're going to say when Commander Magath interrogates you," Koslow growled after they were satisfied there was nothing in her reach except a wooden washbasin and some straw. "He is a man of manners. Personally, I think manners are reserved for humans only, but he may disagree. Don't mistake it for weakness." The lock on the cell's door turned with a _clink_ and she remained still until well after the men's footsteps had faded up the stairs.

* * *

ii. two birds

Hours passed. After she picked herself up and tried to have a thorough look at her surroundings, she discovered that her leg really was in rough shape. Limping and wincing would have to do, as she was already doing her best to ignore the deafening pounding sensation in her ears every time she bent her head low or at a sharp angle.

The cell was no bigger than two cots long and wide, and that was a strange way to think about it, Mikasa admitted, because there was no cot in sight. Only straw, a layer so thin she could see through it. Some of the large rectangular stones on the wall were cracked but none seemed weak enough to be pried apart without a pick, and even if one was, there was no guarantee that the whole wall would not collapse under a mountain of debris. The washbasin water was murky and contained more than a few drowned spiders. Not for drinking, she decided. Was it for that other business then? The time would soon come when she would need to relieve herself. She preferred to do it in the water than outside.

The right-hand side bars… that was most surprising. Her cell seemed to form one half of a bigger cell parted down the middle with them. She could see little on the other side except that no one was in it. The design allowed for visibility, communication and limited contact with another detainee and made little sense to her strategically, unless the captors wanted to listen in on said communication above all else.

Not long after, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs again along with some light but persistent shuffling.

"That fucking shrimp," murmured someone with long, blond hair who came in first and opened the door of the other cell wide with a reverberating bang. "Get him in here, fast."

Mikasa watched intently as they dragged him in by scruff of the neck. He was gagged, hands cuffed behind his back, legs cuffed so that he could barely walk and visibly beaten… yet, there was no mistaking that stature or the furious eyes that peeked under his hair to shoot daggers at the Marleyan officer kicking him forward. With rising discomfort, she realized they had captured not one but two Ackermans and dealt a great blow to the manpower of their forces, knowingly or not. What had happened on the way to the zeppelin that neither Captain Levi nor she could have escaped?

"I have half a mind to keep that gag on you," the first person – a woman – said, as the officer kicked him again and he tumbled inside the cell. "You have quite the sewer mouth. It was entertaining hearing you say those things to Koslow, I'll admit." The grin did not reach her eyes. "And I'm sure you'll live to regret every single one of them."

Levi collected himself and sat on his knees as best as he could. He tossed a glance at the direction of her cell and Mikasa wondered if he could see her at all. She crept a little closer. From underneath strands of bluntly chopped black hair, he met her gaze briefly. Then he turned away, and Mikasa understood that he was already expecting to find her there. He most likely had not suffered a concussion from having his head collide with a rock; therefore he must know exactly what happened.

"Mmffmm."

"Take it off, Pieter. Watch your fingers."

The officer named Pieter took out a pocket knife and cut the rag with a sharp movement that nicked Levi's jaw. No one tried to remove his cuffs before locking him in.

"You speak a lot, little man, but you don't say the right things. We'll be back, so why don't you try harder next time? We even brought you this lovely girl to keep you company," the woman said with no emotion in her inflection. "Reiner Braun told us you've known each other for half a dozen years now, so you must care what happens to her at least a little bit, no? Or maybe you are a heartless little shrimp that would still like to "take a dump on baldy's head" even as we're pulling out her teeth. And nails. And innards, God forbid. Oh no. But maybe your comrades will strike a deal to save you both." At that she laughed and turned to leave. "The boys and I have a wager on who'll break first, you know."

Levi scooted backward and leaned against the stone wall not far from Mikasa. He tilted his head back. Under the orange fluorescence of their prison, Mikasa could not see his eyes, only the outline of his jaw and throat swelling slightly, his breath regular and calm. Calmer than hers, she'd have to admit. She tried to mimic his unruffled disposition, schooled her mouth into a line, and stripped her eyes of the spark of life. They would both need to bring their best calm game, if they were to have a single chance of getting out of this alive and with their country's secrets intact.

Levi murmured something.

"What?" the woman asked, and still he said nothing. "Spit it out!"

He turned to look at her ever so slightly.

"I said: good luck with that, _bitch."_

* * *

A/N: Hello, welcome, have a seat. I plan for this story to be dark, fitting with the themes of SnK/AoT and the general unpleasantness of being a prisoner of war in a universe where the only treaty between nations has a single article and that article reads "Article 1: SEND YOUR INSIDE ENEMIES TO EAT YOUR OUTSIDE ENEMIES".

If your idea of romance is all about realistic development and fifty shades of tension, not necessarily sexual, and a hundred shades of being forced to eat shit together, this story will -hopefully- please you. It *may* contain depictions of torture, trauma, yadda yadda, so if that kind of stuff troubles you, why are you even following this fandom in the first place?

Kindly keep me motivated but don't hesisate to throw your honest feedback at my stupid face. My muse is a fickle creature. I am even more of a fickle creature, but I can be bribed.

P.S. I don't have a beta for this yet so it may be a typofest still. It will be edited further. If you feel like you have too much free time on your hands and not enough money to go to a tropical island and you want to beta read, send me a PM.


	2. pressure cooker

Claustrophobia

Chapter 2

"pressure cooker"

Mikasa and Levi Ackerman had spent many hours not exchanging more than a handful of words. This was not a direct departure from the way they normally did things when they were not held captive by sworn mortal enemies in a dungeon prison. Still, their protracted silence as the hours melted away to the irregular _pitter-patter_ of sewer water, had a certain bite to it. Someone attempting to eavesdrop on the room, say two or three unlucky intelligence officers, would have long felt uncomfortable without perhaps knowing the source of their discomfort.

"What is wrong with them?" the officer said, viciously shredding a handful of toasted wheat bread and shoving it in her mouth. "Just sitting there like they are waiting for the bus to work."

The man sitting at the desk across from hers, his ear glued to a receiver, shrugged. He was lanky like a river weed and in his bony fingers he always held a cigarette or most likely a trail of ash and a filter.

"Frank- Sergeant had a look and said they don't seem to be communicating any other way either. No hand signals or anything."

"Do you reckon that was for real before?"

The door slammed open before he could say it but yes, their infamous prisoners probably did not get along great. Their superior officer, Sergeant Frankie Daniels barged in. Her mouth was pinched, cheeks scarlet. When the central intelligence unit had been told by HQ that her brother was crushed by a boulder less than forty-eight hours ago, no one had known how to approach, let alone comfort her.

She walked over to her empty desk and picked up the receiver. A few minutes later, she hung up and straightened her shoulders. "Still nothing."

"Nothing of import, ma'am," said the female officer, her lunch haphazardly stowed away between her knees and the wooden chair.

"Recap, again."

The officer looked at her notes.

"Female subject, Mikasa Ackerman, 19 years of age, of notable strength. Sustained serious head injury, not critical… Injury to the leg, not critical. Male subject, Levi Ackerman, relationship to female subject unknown, reports by Paradis agent Reiner Braun suggest no immediate familial connection up to the second degree, mid-30s, said to be humanity's strongest soldier," a slight pause, "at least among the five people living on their baby fart of an island," she murmured.

"Cross that part out."

"Yes, ma'am. It wasn't, uh, written, ma'am. I'm sorry."

"Continue, Ray. It's all right."

"Male subject has sustained injuries to the torso and head, mostly during unsuccessful preliminary questioning…" the officer glanced at her superior and took to her notes with a long, prim swipe of the pen. "Crossing that out. 09:28 am… First contact. Six minutes after placing them together. Female subject: ' _What happened?'_ Male subject says nothing for thirteen minutes _. 'I don't remember. Hit my head. Tell me what happened,'_ says female subject. Male subject says nothing for twenty minutes. Female subject kicks the bars, presumably with her good leg. _'Are they alive? Captain, what happened?'_ , then sharply _'Levi.'_ Male subject is quiet for two hours six minutes, then says, _'This place smells nastier than titan's ass.'_ That was an inaccurate statement, ma'am, as everyone knows Titans have no digestive tract, and it was half an hour ago."

"Evil son of a bitch won't spill while we're listening. I want to have some private time with them before Commander Magath gets a chance to. Hit them with the knock-out gas."

"All due respect, Sergeant, that is ill-advised," said the young man. His name was Flint. He was younger than them by half a decade but had established himself well. Frankie Daniels had been known to lend him her ear, not always graciously but sometimes gratefully.

"I know," the Sergeant conceded. "We also don't have the time to do it. He is on his way."

No one blamed her for entertaining the idea of beating the two captives within an inch of their lives. It was not just revenge – not even intelligence gathering. They were Eldians.

"Prep the gas anyway?"

The Sergeant nodded. "Up the dosage. _They can take it._ "

* * *

Mikasa was grateful for the bars between the Captain and herself. Were it not for them, she would have surely pulled out every single stupid hair off his stupid Captain head and shoved them in his stupid, useless Captain mouth. Not only did he refuse to acknowledge her legitimate questions, he had turned his back on her. She was not a moron and did not expect a detailed report; the Marleyans were obviously listening on them, but they also must be aware of the circumstances of their capture. There was no reason to keep quiet about it unless he was sure she would not like the answer, and that was _not acceptable_.

She could feel her body swelling with nervous tension, reverberating in her temples, making her leg pulse yet more loudly. She pushed herself off the floor, limped to the spot in the middle and back of the cell where he was leaning closing to the bars, facing away from her and sat down beside him.

"Just tell me if Eren is okay. And Armin. Please," an almost-whisper.

He glanced at her briefly from the corner of his bruised eye. The purple around the eyebrow was growing livid. It offset the cool light blue of his gaze, which offset the coolness of his attitude, and those things combined made him seem vague and incorporeal. She found the effect unsettling, as though she was the only living being in miles.

Someone had hit him with no regard to his eyesight; that unsettled her too for personal and very corporeal reasons.

"They can still hear you, Ackerman. They must have more advanced methods of surveillance than the old glass on the wall," he said at full volume and then some.

"Fine, find another way to tell me." She reached through the metal and jabbed him in the forearm with her fingers. Levi did not startle, neither did he pull away. He watched her with passively furred eyebrows as she tapped soldier code through the black rubbery sleeve of his uniform. _S-a-f-e-?_

Something akin to a guffaw spilled out of him, acrid and awful. "Mostly. Stop worrying about them, start worrying about yourself."

At this, Mikasa's grip on him turned wooden. Terror clawed through her as she considered the permutations of 'mostly safe'.

"What happened? Eren…" She thought of Eren's thousand-yard stare as Armin lifted him onto the zeppelin. She thought of a young boy shining like a nugget of gold amid the pebbles that life had thrown her, handing her a blood red scarf to keep her warm at night. She thought of dying for him, if not with him, of tearing through enemy after enemy, bloodying their lands and her hands to get him to a place where he could smile warmly. It was a thread she was hanging from, a thin one, and she was swinging over a pit too deep and too black. She had to hold on and hope it would not snap.

Levi fidgeted. "Jaeger was a bit hurt, but he'll be fine. The others probably got back safely."

"Hurt how?"

"Hard to say. There was an explosion on the zeppelin. You remember nothing?"

She shook her head no.

"Well, it stayed airborne. Jaeger was a bit hurt but if they got back in one piece, he'll recover," he said. "That's all I can tell you."

"Wait. Switch to code?" she murmured, inching in closer. He hopped on the balls of his feet, balanced himself with great care and precision and got up. His hands were still cuffed behind his back. His feet were similarly bound at half a step's width. Levi looked rather miserable as he started pacing back and forth as best as he could.

"The setup of this cell…" he said, and Mikasa could hear the strain his voice before he fell quiet.

"I know they are listening."

"Yeah, that's not it. There are few things we could casually say in here that they wouldn't already know from Braun or that hairy glasses bastard."

She kept her mouth shut. If there was a one in a million chance they weren't onto to Zeke Jaeger already, it was smart to throw some mud or at the very least sprinkle some dust in that direction.

"What's it for then?"

Levi paced around faster, a very grim look about him.

"Never mind; Ackerman, I need a favour," he said.

"Fine-"

"What the hell, kid- what is wrong with you? You don't even know what it is." His short, bluntly chopped hair haloed parts of his face and stuck to others. His forehead was beaded with sweat, although the ambient temperature in the cell was far from hot.

"I trust you, Captain," she said levelly. "I just need to know what happened first."

Mikasa raised an eyebrow and glowered at him in expectation of what he should have long offered her. Some time passed before he returned to where she was now standing and looked up at her.

"You fell."

Mikasa Ackerman did not _fall_ , not when she was equipped with 3DM gear.

"I… fell?"

"You fell," Levi deadpanned, raising his knee to press against two bars. "You were hit in the head by debris from the explosion and you fell."

"Right. And how were you captured?"

"I - "

" – fell," they finished at the same time.

If looks could kill, this match would have ended in a draw - in hell.

Mikasa was about to gift him with an unusually long and eloquent chewing out, when she noticed that he seemed _pained_. It was not often that one got to see Levi in genuine, unfettered discomfort. It was written all over his posture to the point where one could say he almost looked desperate. Then he winced, and that settled it.

"What is it? This favour. Where are you hurting?"

He seemed taken aback. "You'd make a bad negotiator."

Of all the people to be stuck in a cell with, it had to be this obnoxious squirrel of a man.

"I am also the only negotiator who can help you, Captain, and I am about to be the negotiator who will _not_ help you," she retorted darkly.

Levi regarded her for a dozen heartbeats or more. Whatever he wanted to ask, he probably would prefer to scrape the bowl of a public toilet with his face than ask it if he had the choice. The seriousness of it made her forget that he was dodging her question, again.

"I would never piss myself, Ackerman," he said. It was a simple statement, but she had once sat through a lecture on the physics of 3DM gear, adjusted for different manufacturing methods, altitudes and body types that she had had less trouble wrapping her head around.

She stared at him dumbly as he shifted from one foot to the other. If he thought he was passing for calm, he was wrong.

"I mean, I don't _want to._ "

She nodded; wondered how ridiculous this whole situation was, wondered who was the genius who tied his hands _behind_ his back and left him like that for so many hours, wondered if they would leave this place with their dignity intact, wondered how she had not been more preoccupied with how to escape before, panic rising as reality hit that they were captives of war, at their mercy, she would never be helpless again, she swore–

 _Breathe. Mikasa. One step at a time._

She grounded herself and brushed the awkwardness away. His face, heart-shaped normally, seemed to have dropped to the ground, hollowness and shadows under his eyes, cheekbones. "All right."

She understood a little of his background to know that letting him soil himself would be worse than stabbing him in the teeth. He had overcome the unending filth of the underground to re-invent himself above ground. She shared similar sensibilities about other, no less sensitive things. "I'll help."

They nodded at each other and in that shared downward movement of the head, there was a promise. _I am strong. You are strong. We will stick it out. It will suck._

Also, _for fuck's sake,_ _let us never speak of this again._

She reached both arms over to his side of the cell and motioned him closer and, once he did, she immediately went for his belt. In battle, if you hesitate, you die. There was no reason why the same principle would stop applying when it was not your enemy's sword you were facing but your Captain's trousers. It should not have come as a surprise, but she had to slouch down ever so slightly for her hands to be able to work efficiently with the metal buckle.

She did not want to see what he looked like while she numbly fought with the stupid thing, wondering why on Earth he had buckled it so tightly in the first place. She pulled it first to the wrong side and then to the right one but not strongly enough, until she pulled it way too strongly, alerted by a tiny _oof_ from its owner.

"Sorry, it was stuck."

"Please hurry," he grunted close-mouthed and, without thinking, she looked at him as her hands unfastened the clip and pulled the whole thing off his waist. Levi was gripping the bar, unbent like a statue, staring past her shoulder in pissed off martyrdom. They locked eyes for an instant and it made matters a hundred times worse. She worked with the top button of his trousers, trying to be a mature adult in a war hostage situation saving her comrade from a spirit-crushing situation, but her fingers were jelly and she was close enough to smell him, which was inappropriate, plain and simple. She got down on one knee, came in closer and berated herself for not concentrating on the task and protracting their embarrassment.

She would not graze anything. Even if she did, it was fine, as they would both probably be dead soon. The first button came loose in seconds then, and soon the second and the third, and she did not even have to rip anything off before pulling her hands away.

"All right, thanks, get up now," he said, emphasis on the last part, as he stepped away with obscene speed.

In doing so, the two strips of fabric, formerly fastened together at the front of his uniform bottom, came apart, revealing dark underwear. There were some things one did not want to know about their superior and neither did he seem keen to show her as he turned away discreetly.

"Can you pull them off now?" she asked, noting with surprise that she sounded extremely annoyed at this whole endeavour. In truth, though, she mostly felt sorry. He was a proud guy. It must have been hard for him.

"I'll try," He stood over the basin. "Mind watching that other wall for me? I saw a nice loose brick to kill someone with."

Unwillingly, the corners of her mouth went up a little. He fussed with his clothes until the rustling stopped and he managed to relieve himself. It took too long. No wonder he felt like death. Then the rustling started again, then some mild cursing, then some heavy cursing.

She did not dare look back.

"Up is harder than down," he said, a very questionable thing to say and one nobody chose to think of the wrong way, probably. "I never thought I'd say this," Levi said, just about done with life as he struggled on, "but I miss the titans." It sounded so childlike coming from him.

Mikasa and Levi had very little time to react when they started feeling the effects of the knock-out gas that had quietly spilled in the room through the cracks in the brick walls. This was of no import, as there was nothing they could have done. They both instinctively braced for impact with the ground.

* * *

When they came to, roughly at the same time, they were strapped to the wall in heavy chains and everyone was mercifully clothed. A behemoth of a man, heavily decorated on his jacket, loomed over Levi.

"It's been forty minutes. How much did you dose them with?"

"Just enough for a horse, Commander," the woman who had brought Levi in before said with glee. The man she had called Pieter stood on one side, the man from the hospital named Koslow on the other. There were two more male officers and a female scribe watching.

 _Quite the party,_ Mikasa mused, staring steadily ahead. One or ten or ten thousand, it did not matter. They would not waver. They could never make them betray their homeland.

"You're awake, finally," the enemy Commander said. He nudged Levi with his foot, but the latter simply relaxed into his restraints and gave him his most unimpressed look. It was, in all seriousness, quite unimpressed. He had always had her grudging admiration for that.

"At your service," Levi replied. Lack of sleep did not seem to affect his ability to give attitude. Lack of sleep did not seem to bother him period.

"Their island is starting to grow on me," Koslow chimed in. "We leave them alone for few hours and come back to find him with his dick out and the belt on her side of the room. If that's how your women are," he suddenly came up close to Levi's face, "I want to visit."

"You can visit when you grow some more hair," Levi said, kick-starting their beating with aplomb.

* * *

A/N 1: Thank you, Glitterskyy, for having an early look through this chapter and checking for errors.

A/N 2: Big thanks to you, reviewers, followers, and silent and brooding readers who are here for the continuation of this tale.

A/N 3: I wanted to name this chapter "in which she takes off his pants" but that would have been a bad spoiler and a bad Marilena.


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